By Maggie Kennedy
That song again,
and I am in that kiss
again that felt so right
but for the right person.
The sudden downpour,
dash from the bar
down the lamp-lit street,
breathless and laughing
at our sodden clothes,
smell of mud hungry
beneath melting snow,
and what the hell
shock of his lips
quieting my shivers.
A kiss that might
have been scripted,
a kiss that still wakes
the hair on my thighs,
a kiss I do not regret
but for you, the right person,
loading the dishwasher while
I part from a young man’s
arms whose name
I struggle to remember.
The piano man builds
his case, coaxing strings
and horns, a baritone’s confession
from some damp corner
into a crescendo of yearning,
like the blackbirds this morning,
dozens of them rising
off electrical wires
to ride gusts of a storm,
forks of lightening
dramatizing the choreography,
and me grounded
in our four-door sedan.
We have our kisses, of course,
the memories we recount
beneath the goose down.
Remember, that first kiss
in your old Dodge Dart
sunk in the bucket seats,
or that record hot day
when we couldn’t stop
kissing on the wall to wall.
The luck of you
humbles me, leaves
me reaching for your hand
in the TV’s haze,
beneath the kitchen table.
This should be enough.
But then a melody, a scent,
the sight of our son’s
gangly limbs cuts
to the swiftness.
Kiss me,
like we are strangers
beneath shorn trees unable
to slow the belting rain.
Kiss me like my name
is forgettable but not the
slope of my hip you trace
then yank tight.
Kiss me before
the song ends, and we
remember ourselves.